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PATERSON, N.J. – A Paterson ex-con accused of pulling off a home invasion by posing as a Passaic County sheriff's officer with a man who's already admitted his role in the crime was brought into federal court on Thursday for a formal arraignment.

Jason Thompson, 34 (
above, left
), is charged with conspiracy to commit robbery, using a gun during a violent crime and being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm.

Last December, Clemente R. Carlos of Newark (
above, right
) told a federal judge that he and Thompson conspired with an unidentified getaway car driver to hold up the resident who lived there because they believed he “kept cash proceeds from his distribution business (there)."

Carlos said he and Thompson both dressed in county sheriff’s garb on April 12, 2015 and went to the house around 7 a.m.

They "accosted a female victim and her infant as the victim was leaving and...led [her] back inside her apartment," Acting U.S. Attorney William Fitzpatrick said Thursday.

Once inside, Fitzpatrick said, Thompson "removed a firearm from a sidearm holster and pointed it at the victim’s brother, who had been sleeping inside the apartment. "Thompson then used a ziptie to restrain the man’s hands behind his back and instructed him to kneel on the floor. After searching the apartment and failing to find the money they were looking for, Thompson and Carlos left the residence," he said.

Thompson was arrested outside his own home on Dec. 2, 2015. A search of the apartment turned up a loaded revolver in his bedroom, Fitzpatrick said.

Carlos pleaded guilty last Dec. 1 and is scheduled to be sentenced on May 2. That date may change, depending on how Thompson proceeds.

Fitzpatrick credited the FBI and members of the Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office for making the case. He also thanked the county sheriff’s office and Paterson police for their assistance.

Handling the case for the government is Assistant U.S. Attorney Jamari Buxton of Fitzpatrick's Organized Crime/Gangs Unit in Newark.